Woman busted at airport with 4 pounds of cocaine in her breast implants

Narcotics agents became suspicious when the woman began acting nervously at a routine screening

Spanish National Police/AFP/Getty Images

Bringing a whole new meaning to a major drug bust, drug agents became suspicious of a woman who began acting nervously during a routine screening at the international airport in Madrid, Spain, late last week. The 43-year-old woman from Venezuela had just landed in Madrid from Bogota, Colombia. After she was detained, police discovered almost four pounds of cocaine stuffed into her two breast implants, according to an Aug. 15 report from CBS News.

Spain is always on the outlook for drugs coming in from the more notorious drug-producing countries and employs a police unit specifically dedicated to checking passenger arrivals coming out of those countries. Agents at the airport screened the woman’s luggage but didn't find any unusual contraband.

But then, a female narcotics agent patted the woman down and during the physical search and frisk found “irregularities and deformations in both of the suspect's breasts.” And that’s when the alleged female drug mule confessed to having cocaine in her breast implants, according to a statement released by the Spanish police on Friday.

The top heavy drug smuggling suspect was transported to a nearby hospital and detained there “for an alleged crime against public health,” according to the police statement. The Huffington Post reported that the woman’s implants were surgically removed at the hospital and found to contain 1.7 kilos, approximately 3.7 pounds, of cocaine. The woman’s name had not yet been released.

A board-certified plastic surgeon out of New York City, Dr. Matthew Schulman, shared with The Daily News that carrying contraband in breast implants isn’t all that new, unusual or uncommon – especially to the plastic surgery community. "It's probably done more often than people realize," Schulman said – adding that security alerts started being issued several years ago for officials to be on the lookout for “terrorists using breast implants as a way to move bombs.”

In the instance of the Venezuelan woman having cocaine stuffed into her breast implants, Schulman theorized that the woman somehow managed to replace the saline that was in her implants with the coke. "There's obvious risks with that because it was probably not done under sterile conditions, so there's risk of infection and also the body absorbing that cocaine, which could cause sudden death from a cocaine overdose,” Schulman added.